


I Can't Think Straight

by lilolilyrae



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Background Relationships, F/F, Getting Together, Good Quynh | Noriko, Immortal family, Quynh | Noriko-centric, no betas we die like Quynh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28370724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilolilyrae/pseuds/lilolilyrae
Summary: Quỳnh moves into a new shared flat, falls out of love and in love again... mostly in that order.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 22
Kudos: 46





	1. Flat Hunting

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't tag it because it's not really the pairing this focuses on, but just be warned that Quỳnh is in a not-so-happy (not physically abusive or anything, he's just a bit of a dick) relationship with a guy at the beginning of this story! Name credit to a tumblr user I can't look up rn bc that damn website is down again... will edit later.

Quỳnh is feeling anxious as she walks up the steps to the apartment.

The three shared flats she had visited yesterday have been complete busts, and this one is the last one on the list she can actually afford without working more, and if she works more she might not have enough time for her classes...

She's glad that she had insisted for Nathan to stay home this weekend, that she is taking the bus instead of letting him drive her around. She would hate for him to see her cry in the car because she just can't handle any more setbacks.

First, she fails her Business Environment exam and will have to re-take the course with the horrid professor for the entire next semester, then her new flatmate turns out to be a racist creep, then the landlord won't kick him out and tells her to just move instead, and every place she looks at only has people who are even worse or are in such bad shape that Quỳnh didn't even want to stay for a chat.

Taking a deep breath, she rings the bell. It will be fine, right? It's not like she has high standards. Running water, wifi, no mould, functioning heating and flatmates that aren't complete fascists. Easy enough, one would think.

"You Quynn?" comes a voice from the intercom, pronouncing her name more like 'Quinn' than any version of her actual name.

"Quỳnh, yes" she answers, forcing herself to not immediately judge the stranger for pronouncing her name wrong once, and the door buzzes open. 

"Third floor," the brusque voice growls before the intercom goes silent.

Biting her lip, Quỳnh hesitates for a moment before she pushes open the door and starts on the stairs.

_'Anderson'... 'Miles & Carter'..._ ah, there. ' _Freeman, DiKaysi, Al-Kaysani, Scythia.'_ it says on the doorbell of 303, the paper strip with the names haphazardly squished on top of older signs.

The door is closed, so Quỳnh rings the bell again.

"One sec!" a voice calls from inside- a woman, though a different one than the one from the intercom. "Come on, Andy, just open the damn door, it won't be so bad-"

"You said that yesterday, too," 'Andy' growls. Quỳnh hopes that means she is only in such a mood because the other applicants were douchebags- might give her better chances to actually get the room, if it turns out alright.

Before she can contemplate that any further, the door is flung open and she comes face-to-face with the most beautiful, incredibly angry looking woman she has ever seen.

Her eyes are bright green, almost turquoise, forcing Quỳnh to look away before she can be hypnotised, only for her eyes to land on the arms that are crossed over the woman's chest, showing defined muscles and dark veins under pale skin...

Quỳnh has to blink a few times before she remembers how to speak.

"Uhm- hi?" she stammers out. "I'm Quỳnh- I mean, you know that..."

"Come on, Andy, don't intimidate her like that," the second woman looks over Andy's shoulder and smiles at Quỳnh. "Hi, I'm Nile! And Andy's really not that bad once you get past all the glowering," she laughs, and Andy frowns.

Oh. She thinks Quỳnh is scared of her. Which- Maybe it's the fact that she has seen much worse already in the past days, maybe it's her bright eyes and soft laughter lines visible next to her eyes despite her frown, but somehow, Quỳnh is not afraid of her at all.

Waving her into the flat, Nile takes on the role of a tour guide, pointing her to the room- which is small but otherwise perfect for her-, the bathroom, complete with shower and even a washing machine, and finally the kitchen, which also seems to second as a living room area.

"So," Andy states once they are done with the tour, once again crossing her arms over her chest.

"Uh, do you want to drink anything?" Nile quickly interrupts her, smiling at Quỳnh, but it seems a little forced.

"...water, please" Quỳnh asks, then just sits down at the table uninvited while Nile goes to fetch her a glass as it gets increasingly clear that no-one is going to ask her to sit down.

"Before we come to the pleasantries," Andy states, and Quỳnh thinks that Nile maybe wanted to flee before she came to this part, "We just have clear up a few things. Do you plan to party here? Be otherwise loud? Give other people your keys?"

"What? No!" Quỳnh exclaims, taken aback. "I mean, I would have maybe given it to my boyfriend or my parents if they need to stop by, but I can- not do that?"

Andy squints at her, not moving a muscle otherwise.

"Opinion on gay people, trans people, refugees and the Tories?"

Quỳnh blinks. That's a new question to be asked when visiting a shared flat.

"...equal rights? Uhm, except for the Tories? Not that I don't agree with democracy, just..."

She trails of, and Andy slowly, very slowly, uncrosses her arms from where they had still been folded over her chest, sits down opposite Quỳnh, puts her elbows on the table and her head in her hands, and looks at her scrutinizingly for a long moment. Then, she finally nods, leans back and states

"I think you'll do."

"Uh... thanks?" Quỳnh asks, now utterly confused.

"We had some... _bad_ experiences in this flat," Andy explains, suddenly sounding a lot friendlier. 

"And the idiots who came visit yesterday didn't really help to put Andy in a good mood," Nile adds before putting down a bottle of water and miss-matched glasses on the table, pouring them all a glass and sitting down on the chair between the two of them. “Candy?” she pushes a bowl with wrapped candies in her direction.

"Gosh, they sure fucking didn't," Andy growls before Quỳnh can decide whether she wants sweets or not, her eyes turning to narrow slits. "Would have kicked that last racist asshole right out the door if Yusuf didn't still have his no violence thing going on."

Quỳnh isn't sure what to reply to that and takes a sip from the glass of water instead. Thankfully, Andy keeps talking before she has to think of something else to stall for time with.

"Our last flatmate was an annoying, constantly drunk dude. I mean, not that he was evil or anything, he was nice enough at the beginning, we even let his girlfriend move in after- but then they had a bad breakup, Jeannie literally left the country and Booker started drinking even more after she moved out- that's who Nile here moved in for, by the way, so she didn't really witness all the relationship drama- and when he was completely wasted one night, Booker just basically threw a house-party here without asking any of us first. Place looked trashed for a week, of course he couldn't be bothered to clean either, and we had to take care of it ourselves even though we had exams."

"Oh- fuck. Um, sorry..." Quỳnh adds, before realizing that Andy has already sworn a lot more than she ever does.

"What for?" Andy asks, sounding bewildered. "You're not the one who did it."

"I think she's apologising for saying 'fuck'," Nile says with a giggle, before turning to Quỳnh. "Uh, really don't worry about your language. Andy and Nicky are definitely worse than anything you could come up with."

Andy huffs at that and Nile rolls her eyes at her.

"Nicky also lives here, right?" Quỳnh asks, hoping to hear more about the rest of the inhabitants of the flat. So far, she likes the place and the people, but signing anything when she hasn't even met all of the others yet would make her a little uneasy.

"Yeah, where _are_ the guys??" Andy asks, turning to Nile. "They damn well know they're supposed to be here! Don't tell me they're fucking again."

"I don't think they're even home from Uni yet," Nile says, "I'll text in the group."

"What do you study?" Quỳnh asks Andy when Nile pulls out her phone.

"Huh?" Andy gives her a piercing look, and Quỳnh feels herself blush and stumble over her words again.

"Uhm, do you still study? I thought, because you said something about exams..."

"Oh, yeah, I'm studying old languages, but it's more of a hobby, Joe and Nile here were the ones who really had to pass their damn exams, I don't really care about the degree so much. Work as a riding instructor, anyways.”

“Don’t let her put herself down to you, Quỳnh,” Nile says with a laugh, looking up from her phone with an easy smile. “She’s working with some of the best racing horses in the country, and then she volunteers at a riding program for children with disabilities every month.”

Andy rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Anyway, I make enough-ish money and don’t really plan to ever use my language degree, so there’s that. What are you studying?”

It’s as clear a deflection as any, but Quỳnh doesn’t blame her. She understands not wanting to talk about something with a complete stranger, and she is sure that when- _if_ , she has to remind herself that that is still a pretty big if- she moves in here, she will learn more about Andy and her job, and maybe her reasons to be shy about it.

"Multimedia design." Quỳnh answers, maybe a little shortly so, but she tries not to think about Uni any more than necessary on a good day, so...

Thankfully, Andy doesn't push, instead asking what part of town she had lived in until now and what her favourite restaurants on campus are.

Nile chimes in to say that no bar could ever be as great as the little dive she and her drama club like to hang out at, and they make smalltalk for a few minutes until Joe and Nicky arrive.

"Sorry, got held up at the TA's office," Joe explains as he throws his coat over a chair and hugs Nile and Andy hello.

" _Sure_ that’s what happened." Andy says, patting his shoulder before she pulls back.

“Hey, we really got held up!” Nicky tells her indignantly. “We only snogged for, like, five minutes after, and we didn’t miss the next bus!”

“Ugh. Boys.” Andy grumbles, but there is a fond smile on her lips, and Quỳnh finds herself wishing even more to be part of this little community.

“So, you must be Quỳnh, then?” Nicky asks her and offers her his hand to shake. Quỳnh quickly stands up to greet him. “Oh- hi, yes, that’s me. Quỳnh. Oh- you got my name right on the first try!” She’s so used to having to correct people on it, she immediately repeated her name in her greeting before it even registered that he had pronounced it correctly already.

“I’m glad, then. Google is very helpful.” Nicky says with a bit of a blush. Joe tousles his hair, before leaning around him to give Quỳnh a bright smile. Nicky ducks away to sit down next to Andy.

“Nice to meet you!" Joe greets her. "I really am sorry we’re late… Do you already know when you could move in?”

Quỳnh blinks. “Um. I could move in immediately, I guess- I mean, I still have to ask when my boyfriend would have time to help me move my things, I guess, I mean he has a car… but um, you don’t even know me yet?”

Joe laughs. “Maybe, but you seem to get on well with Andrea and Nile, and I trust their character. Oh, and Andy has a car, if your boyfriend doesn’t have time I’m sure we can figure something out!”

Quỳnh is still a little taken aback, but his easy cheer is too contagious to be very weirded out by him. She sits back down, immediately taking her water glass again to have something to fidget with, but she's not half as anxious as at the beginning of the visit.

“Oh, and about that bf of yours- if you think you can move in here and wait for one of us to move out so your man can follow, just know that that’s not gonna happen.” Andy cuts in. “I’m not doing that again. Plus, we've all got years left in our study programmes so you're not getting rid of any of us so easily.”

“Andy!” Nile chides her for being so rude.

“No, no, it’s fine- it's fine, really. We’re not planning to move in together soon.” At least, _she_ isn’t.

"I mean, sure he can stay overnight but we don't want it to evolve into another roommate. One shower's really not enough for five people as is." Andy tries for a friendlier tone of voice again, giving Nile a look as if to say ‘ _See, I can be nice_.”

Nile, however, just raises an eyebrow. “If you don’t want couples in the flat…”

Nicky snickers behind his hands, and Joe openly laughs, clearly, they are comfortable in their knowledge that Andy doesn’t want to get rid of them.

Andy takes a candy wrapper and throws it at them. “Ugh, they get a gay bonus, plus they've been here since before the new rule.”

“Who says you're the one making the rules anyway?” Nicky asks, getting up to throw the wrapper in the trash before sitting down again, pulling Joe with him.

“I do, and people tend to listen!” Andy calls out.

Joe snorts. “She's not wrong about that, you know!”

Andy laughs happily, her entire face lighting up with her grin. Quỳnh has to look away, almost feeling blinded for a reason she can’t put her finger on.

After that, the afternoon passes in easy conversation.

About an hour after they arrived, Nicky gets out two big Tupperwares full of lasagne leftovers, and they all have a late lunch or early dinner together.

When it is time to say their goodbyes, Quỳnh feels as if she had known the other four for much longer than a day already.

Andy tells her that she will call her once they made their decision about the new roommate, but as she has learned that the last visitors were busts and that they will only have one more visitor before they decide- and especially with how well she got on with all of them- Quỳnh is feeling hopeful, almost like the decision is a mere formality at this point.

“You okay with a hug goodbye?” Joe asks her by the door, and Quỳnh freezes for a moment before she nods.

“Uh- sure!”

He pulls her into a right bear hug, but it is comfortable, and Quỳnh has to force herself to pull away after an appropriate amount of time. Her family isn’t prone to showing much physical affection, and Nathan only hugs her when he wants to snog or fuck, so it feels really nice for someone to hug her who doesn’t have any ulterior motives.

When Andy squeezes her shoulder afterwards, Quỳnh finds herself wishing that she would hug her, too. She pushes the thought far away. She must just be more touch-starved than she had thought.

Once she is back on the street, Quỳnh pulls out her phone to call Nathan while she makes her way to the bus station.

"I think I got a room!" she tells him, excitement making her speak louder than she usually would.

"Oh, that's cool!" Nathan answers, sounding a little distracted and there is a moment of rustling and some shouting in the background before he is back on the phone. "I'm happy for you, hun! You coming over to Billy's? We're playing Warcraft but I'm sure I can find you a beer to celebrate!"

So that's the noise she had been hearing. "No, thank you," Quỳnh answers. No matter how great video games may or may not be, watching other people play them while shouting at each other is not her idea of a nice afternoon. "I still have to get some things done for design seminars tomorrow. See you at lunch?"

"Sure, sure. Love you!" Nathan replies before apparently one of the guys snatches the phone from his hands and shouts something about showing him what a sore loser he’ll be this time.

"Love you, too," Quỳnh murmurs into the silence, just to have said it. It's only fair, after all.

Sitting down on the cold bench to wait for the bus, Quỳnh idly moves her phone from one hand to the other as she contemplates what to do next. She really does have some research to finish, but she also knows that the rest of her group in the seminar will only half-ass their work, and the Prof won’t notice either way…

In the end, she decides to call Celeste next, her ever distracted fellow student. Well, not from her study course exactly, Quỳnh has no idea what Celeste majors in, but somehow, she has always been around.

Quỳnh isn’t usually the one to initiate contact between them, and in the past Celeste has only brought her along with larger groups of people, but Quỳnh doesn’t know who else to call, and she doesn’t want to be alone after the cozy, familiar atmosphere in the flat.

It’s a pity all her friends from school moved to different cities to study.

“Celeste here?” she picks up at the second ring.

“Uh, hi? I was wondering whether you were doing anything tonight? Um, I think I finally managed to get myself a room, so…”

“We have to celebrate!” Celeste immediately agrees. “I’m just doing laundry at home right now, so I have time!”

Quỳnh is a little taken aback by how ready she is to drop everything just to celebrate her getting a room, given that they're not even _that_ close friends. But that's Celeste, right? It doesn't mean Nathan wasn't also happy for her, and he did invite her to come over to Billy's even though that's usually sacred ‘guy space’. It was her who didn’t accept the invitation, pretending like she has Uni work to do.

Feeling slightly guilty, Quỳnh still agrees to meet Celeste at the usual pub by the college. At least Nathan would never show up there…

* * *

Early on the next day, Quỳnh gets a call from Andy: she's got the room!

Quỳnh couldn't be happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked it, please let me know! :D Isn't Quỳnh a lovely babygay in denial? xD
> 
> I'm already working on more of this, but whether I'll update this or other stories first & **how quickly I'll upload** at all also depends on how much love each of them gets as that tends to motivate me- no rly, every comment reminds me of the existence of the WIP fic and then I'm more likely to keep writing for it soon!


	2. Interlude

No worries, the next full chap will be up in a mo' if it isn't already! Here just some background facts on the characters in this AU:

I made a shitty little poster edit for this fic on tumblr btw: [I Can't Think Straight](https://lilolilyr.tumblr.com/post/638770317171523584)

Nathan's name was Pat's [idea](https://lilolilyr.tumblr.com/post/636497627193704448) (@andy-the-scythian on tumblr)

Pls note : Rating might go up in future chapters, but I'll always make sex scenes easily skippable!!! I'll also only write F/F smut, sorry 'Nathan' xD

The fic is set vaguely in England, 2010s.

In this story:

\- Andy is around 29 and working primarily as a horse trainer for racehorses. She likes the job well enough, but she doesn't like the way some people treat their horses, and sometimes she wishes she could make enough money working with therapy horses from her weekend job as she does with the race horses... She studies old languages, not one language in particular, in fact she's been through most of the study course already several times focusing on different languages but never finishing her degree.

\- Quỳnh is 23, studying multimedia design because it's something somewhat respectable where she will be able to get a good job in IT or marketing as per her parents wishes while still having some creative aspects... she would prefer to only do art, but still tries to make the most of the compromise. She works part-time as a cashier at Boots.

\- Nathan (OC) is 25, has been working on his Bachelor Thesis in business administration for some time now (except he's seldomly actually working on it), met Quỳnh at the wedding of his mother's best friend's daughter and they have been together for almost a year now.

\- Nile is 21, she's going to be a kindergarten teacher, her hobbies are all kinds of arts and crafts, and she is also in a Uni drama club.

\- Joe is 27, studying art history, he loves to teach and wants to be a professor, but he is always sketching in his freetime. 

\- Nicky is 26, he comes from a bigoted ultra-catholic family and only started to get over all the prejudice he had been taught when he moved out at 22. He doesn't want to be anything like his family, thus also doing things like googling Quỳnh's name to make sure he pronounces it right. He met Joe about two years ago and they fell in love almost instantly.

\- Celeste is in her early 30s, has done all kinds of odd jobs while she did her first degree in psychology, then decided to keep at the odd jobs- barkeep, nude modelling, retail, translating, tutoring, and, and, and- and keep studying instead of starting as a therapist as planned. Since then she has somewhat turned into a campus cryptid, everybody knows her or at least of her. Every year she picks out some freshies to take under her wing when they look like they could need a friend, and she sincerely likes Quỳnh and considers her a real friend after a while.

(I know it's ironic that the canon mortal is the oldest in this story lol, but that's the vibes she gives me)

\- Moira (OC) is 23, in Quỳnh's semester and in some of her business-related courses, but she is actually studying with Nile- she wants to open her own pre-school. She's also one of the most active members in Niles drama club, really into Cosplay, she likes Andy because she can talk to her in Greek and always tries to make her join the theatre shenanigans.

Booker and his ex won't be in this story any more than the mentions in Chapter 1. 

Idk yet whether I will work all of these headcanons into the story, but just so you know!


	3. The Move

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've moved into so many shared houses/flats and would currently love to move into a new one, so this is quite Feels for me :D 
> 
> Apology in advance for the hetero. At least Andy is in the chapter too? This might turn into a bit of a slow-burn, we'll see! I do have a general outline for future chapters planned, but nothing exact yet.

The day of the move is a Monday, as Quỳnh ended up having to go sign the contract with the estate agent of the building first on Saturday, and then on Sunday Nathan was busy playing football. His team lost, which places him in a bad mood even before they start to drag Quỳnh's things into his car. 

She's glad that he is still willing to help her move at least- she had told him that her flatmates had offered, too, and that Andy has a car, but she didn't really want to impose on them like that before she even got to know them better. When she had told Nathan about the offer, he had scoffed that he'd drive his girl around himself and not let some dude he doesn't know or trust do the honours...

'Don't you trust me though?' Quỳnh had wanted to ask, but she let it slide. For some reason, she didn't tell him that Andy is a _she_ not a he, either.

"Ugh, why didn't we already do this day before yesterday?" Nathan groans as he carries a piece of her wardrobe to the car. "I'm going to have sore muscles before we even get to your flat."

"You didn't want the car to be stuffed in case you needed it, remember?" Quỳnh says quietly. She's not at all sure that he heard her.

With a sigh, she carries her box of art supplies after him, carefully stacking it on top of the carton of books. "I think we have everything."

"Man, can't believe you're moving to the other end of town!" Nathan groans when they are stuck at yet another traffic light in the inner city. "Why don't you just move in with me, again?"

They had this talk before, though he had never asked her so outright before. Why now, when she is already moving in somewhere else, what is he even trying to accomplish?

"You know my mom wouldn't approve," Quỳnh calmly explains. "She's thinks I shouldn't even be sleeping over at your place."

It's not a lie, but Quỳnh is actually quite glad for the excuse of conservative parents now. She can't say why she doesn't want to move in with Nathan, but something about the thought always made her uneasy. Maybe she's just not ready for that step yet.

Nathan grumbles something about backwards immigrants. ' _As if his ultra-catholic family is any better,_ ' Quỳnh thinks, turning her head so she looks out the window. It is starting to rain. ' _He just wouldn't care what they think of him._ '

"Bugger, we're going to get wet carrying everything inside now." Nathan curses as he turns on the windshield wipers. 

Quỳnh smiles. At least they're in agreement about the weather. She hopes her things won't get too soaked.

Running through the rain and unlocking first the front door and then the one to the flat, Quỳnh finds it empty of her flatmates. They are probably at at Uni- she should be there herself, too, but the lectures she is missing aren't compulsory to attend, and she will be able to go through the slides online.

Thankfully, the Professors in Economics and User Interface 101 tend to upload their slides on time, the one saving grace of both courses. Quỳnh doesn't know anyone in the lectures, and she doesn't want to. She knows it would be clever to have at least one friend per course in case she misses something, but she couldn't bring herself to care, so now she is glad that the Professors will probably upload everything she needs to know.

Putting someone's shoe into the door so it will stay open, she makes her way back downstairs, thinking that she should replace Nathan at the car, but she already meets him in the hallway.

"three-oh-three, last door on the right," she tells him, squishing past the wooden board he is carrying, and Nathan nods his thanks.

Quỳnh hurries outside, through the rain and under the open door of the car's trunk. It made her a little uneasy, knowing that her things were out in the open here without anyone to watch them, but well, it's Nathan's car that was unlocked and unwatched then, too... and there's no-one out in the rain right now, anyway-

Pulling a raincoat from a box of clothes, Quỳnh haphazardly pulls it over the carton holding her university papers, hoping that it will stay dry, and runs back inside.

Next up are pieces of her wardrobe they have to carry through the narrow stairwell together, then boxes of her sewing, design and art supplies as well as more clothes than Quỳnh thinks are going to fit into the room. Damnit, she will have to sort out a lot if she wants to have a tidy wardrobe.

Nathan lazily piles up boxes, and Quỳnh winces when he sets the heavy box of books he had insisted of carrying onto her design posters. She quickly moves them, hoping they didn't get too wrinkled.

After a few more trips from the car to her room and back, Quỳnh finds Nathan placing the last parts of the wooden bed against the wall and going to stare out the window. 

Part of her wants to go and stand next to him, to enjoy this moment together, but she can't make herself move.

Maybe she just thinks she wants to make this a _moment_ because that sounds romantic in theory- her head on his shoulder, his arm around her waist, a picture like from the end of a movie- not because she really wants to stand next to him right now. Quỳnh wonders if anyone in these pretty pictures of romance actually feels good in any of them. Should she feel good in situations like that? Does she not love him enough?

"I think we brought everything, but the car's still open..." she says, feeling awkward.

"Oh, right!" Nathan exclaims, oblivious to her emotional turmoil as he clumps down the stairs. Going over to the window, Quỳnh looks out and sees the rain run down the street in muddy streaks of greyish brown. Not very romantic... so maybe she had been overthinking this situation.

Turning away, Quỳnh starts to clear an area by the back wall of boxes where her bed is going to be.

Nathan is back a moment later, shaking his wet hair at her and leaving mud trails on the floor with his shoes. Quỳnh grimaces.

"Please not in here?" He just snorts. "Seriously! Can you take off your shoes and help...?"

Nathan shakes his head at her. "Girls..."

He does throw his shoes into a corner in the hallway and helps her carry the pieces of her bed where she wants him, and Quỳnh immediately feels bad for being mad at him. He is helping _her_ move after all.

"I think we need different wrenches for those," Nathan states, looking through the parts and Quỳnh's toolbox. 

"We took it apart with those, we can put it back together, too," Quỳnh tries to think logically. "Let me have a look?"

Nathan grumbles about that, and it takes them a while, but in the end they do manage to put her bed together, and Quỳnh sighs in relief when she lets the mattress that had so far been leaning against the wall flop down on the slatted frame and sits down.

"Looks like it's holding."

"What, were you doubting my skills?" Nathan laughs and flops down next to her, making the frame creak. 

"I did as much as you did!"

"Sure."

Looking around the room, Quỳnh can already imagine how it will look once she is finished with it. She would love to put up curtains and fairy lights already, but the logical side of her knows that the wardrobe and bookshelves need to come first...

With a sigh, she gets back up. "Let's do the wardrobe next?"

"Oh, come on, girl, we didn't have a proper break yet!" Nathan complains, grabbing her hand and trying to pull her back onto the bed, but Quỳnh shakes her head.

"We need to finish this first."

"Oh, I'm sure we'll finish it, let's just have some fun first..."

 _'Easy for you to say, you won't have to live in a half-finished room for a week if we don't manage this today.'_ Quỳnh thinks and pulls her hand out of his grip. She can't afford to skip any more lectures, it will take her long enough to work through the ones she is missing today.

While he is still set on having a break, Nathan offers to go and buy food to placate her. Quỳnh just sighs and agrees before turning to the IKEA pieces of her old wardrobe, which was probably not meant to be taken apart and put back together in the first place.

Nathan tramples around for a while, distracting her from her work, until he finally leaves to get McDonalds, and Quỳnh breathes sigh of relief. She loves him, of course she does! He's just not one to set up a room with.

A while later, Quỳnh is trying to simultaneously balance two pieces of wood together while putting in the bolts, she hears the front door open, and calls for Nathan to put the food on the table.

Instead of Nathan, however, it is Andy who sticks her head through her door.

Quỳnh blushes.

There is wet hair sticking to Andy's forehead, and she is wearing leather riding breeches.

'Probably came straight home from her work with the horses,' Quỳnh thinks. She still smells a little like hay and animals.

"Need help with that?" Andy's voice breaks her out of her thoughts, and Quỳnh blushes even more when she notices that she had been staring.

"Uh, you don't have to..."

"Don't worry about it! I know setting up furniture alone is a pain in the ass. Just let me shower real quick, then I'll be back."

With that, she disappears in the hallway, and Quỳnh has to set down her tools and take a minute to breathe. ' _Get yourself together, Quỳnh!_ ' she tells herself. ' _It's just your flatmate._ '

She goes into the kitchen to get something to drink. It takes her a minute to find a cupboard with glasses, but at least it looks like those are free to use for everyone.

Sipping her water, she makes her way back to her room and looks at the chaos at the floor... she has to admit that she hasn't come far on wardrobe by herself, so maybe she does need help.

When Andy comes back, she immediately rolls up the sleeves of her black shirt, ready to tackle things.

Together, they build the wardrobe, and while neither knows more about putting together furniture than Nathan does, it feels a lot more natural and less stressful than it had to build the bed with him. Maybe wardrobes are just easier to put together than a bed, but knowing how many different IKEA screws and bolts they are using now, Quỳnh kind of doubts it.

"So, you wanted to do everything yourself?" Andy had asked as she surveyed the chaos in Quỳnh's room. "Impressed you managed with the bed already!"

"Oh, I put that together with Nathan, he's just getting food now," Quỳnh had quickly explained, feeling a little embarrassed, whether because she has to admit that she isn't quite so skilled or because she mentioned Nathan, she couldn't tell. "I didn't want to wait for him to come back to do the rest, I'm kind of afraid I'll have to live in this mess all week if I don't get it done by tonight..."

Andy had raised an eyebrow but nodded, and they have been working in easy conversation since, interrupted by relaxed silence and the occasional "Pass me that wrench, please?"

Quỳnh learns that Andy had a bad day at work, dealing with a jockey who thinks he knows the horses better than her and almost got himself injured through his idiocy.

"Sorry about the rant," Andy groans, letting her forehead sink against the part of the wardrobe she is currently holding, "But that fucker just makes me want to punch things."

Quỳnh laughs. "I don't mind."

And she really doesn't. It's nice, listening to Andy be so passionate about a topic. In turn, Quỳnh tells her about the way she wants to decorate the room, and that she hopes there will be enough outlets to keep her fairy lights running without interfering with anything else.

"Nile has a multi-plug cable thing she isn't using, we borrowed it to keep the fridge running when the power in the kitchen was out once, you could ask her," Andy suggests.

Quỳnh fiddles with the threaded bolts in her hands, feeling a little blindsided. "Oh, I can just get one myself if I end up needing it, I wouldn't want to take hers just for my fairy lights..."

Andy shrugs. "I think she really isn't using it, has it just in case... you don't need to buy one if you could use hers and give it back if she does end up needing it."

Quỳnh nods, although she doesn't think that she will ask Nile for it.

Quicker than Quỳnh had expected, they are done, tilting the finished wardrobe up and against the wall.

"Wow!" Quỳnh beams. Now, her room is really coming together.

"Didn't you say that your boyfriend wanted to bring some lunch?" Andy asks, stepping back with her hands on her hips as she looks at the wardrobe. "I'm getting hungry, too."

Quỳnh freezes. "Yes... I don't know why he isn't back yet..."

"Hope nothing happened to him, then," Andy replies easily, and a shiver runs down Quỳnh's spine. That thought hadn't even crossed her mind until now- Nathan isn't necessarily the most reliable person, she's used to this from him.

Pulling out her phone while Andy disappears in the kitchen mumbling about frozen Pizza, she click's Nathan's contact.

"Hi! Where are you?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry, babe, I ran into the boys and we're-"

"Okay." Quỳnh interrupts him before he can tell her anything else. "I just wanted to make sure that you're alright."

With that, she hits disconnect and stands there, staring at the empty wall in front of her.

It's not like she had expected anything else from him, but- she's disappointed, all the same.

"What's going on?" Andy asks, suddenly back in the doorway. "Your boy coming back, or do you also want some pizza?"

Quỳnh shrugs. "I'm not really hungry," she tells her, and when Andy raises an eyebrow, "Nathan just forgot, he ran into some friends."

"He just forgot?!" Andy looks furious on her behalf, and Quỳnh avoids her eyes. 

"Let's not talk about it, yes?"

Andy slowly nods and ushers her into the kitchen, not accepting a no as an answer on the pizza.

Soon after they finished eating, Joe and Nicky arrive- they're actually called Yusuf and Niccolò, Andy has told her, but almost no-one calls them that, the same way no-one calls Andy 'Andrea'- and insist on helping, too. 

Together, they manage to finish everything in one day, Quỳnh even puts away most of her clothes into the wardrobe while the others put up the last shelves.

"Looks good!" Joe says, stepping back with a big smile on his face and clapping his hands together. "You done over there, too, Nico, Andy?"

"Yup." Andy puts down the hammer into Quỳnh's toolbox while Nicky walks over to kiss Joe's cheek.

"Anything else you need?" 

"Uh- no?" Quỳnh looks around the room. The decorating she wants to do herself, knowing that she is too much of a perfectionist to want anyone else to mess with it. The furniture is all in place, wardrobe, shelves, desk, bed-

Oh. Her eyes have fallen on the floor, which is still dirty as hell from the rainwater, a surprising amount of sawdust from putting together the shelves which weren't even new, and general grime. Thankfully, the floor is linoleum, which should be a lot easier to clean than the carpet in her previous room, but Quỳnh doesn't have any cleaning supplies yet, so...

"Uhm. Actually, do you happen to have any cleanser and a rag I could borrow...?"

The others follow her line of sight and look at the floor. "Oh. yeah." Nicky scratches his head. "Guess we weren't the cleanest..."

He looks so embarrassed, Quỳnh has to hold back laughter. "No, no, it was raining when we came in, I think most of it is from then..."

Joe gets her cleaning supplies from the bathroom, and they all offer to help clean the floor, but Quỳnh insists she can really do it herself. The last thing she wants is for her nice flatmates to feel like they have to clean for her, she's already indebted to them enough.

"Well then we insist you eat with us when you're done!" Joe announces, and Nicky nods. "Any requests for dinner?"

Quỳnh tells him that she is vegetarian, Andy just says that she wants more pizza, and Nicky side-eyes her, not even mentioning the grocery store pizza package on top of the paper waste.

"Fine, fine, cook what you want to, why'd you even ask?" Andy whines, but it is clear that it is only said in jest. She tries to slap Nicky's behind on her way out and ends up in a mock-wrestling match with Joe who needed to 'defend Niccolò's honour'.

"...well, I'll be in the kitchen," Nicky tells Quỳnh with an awkward shrug and a nod while Andy and Joe fall down on the hallway floor, and he actually has to step over them to get out of her room.

Quỳnh has to laugh.

When she finishes cleaning the floor, the flat is relatively quiet.

Down the hallway in the bathroom, she can hear the shower running, and the smell of good hearty food is already wafting through the air from the kitchen. Low rock music is audible through the walls of the room next to her, and Quỳnh realizes that she doesn't even know whose room is next to hers yet. Something makes her hope that it is Andy's.

The only other sound is the gentle ticking of her own alarm clock, the one noise that has accompanied her through her last moves.

Humming in tune with the low music, Quỳnh gets up and sorts through her boxes until she finds the strings of warm-white fairy lights, and she puts them up along the top of the walls and over her bed. So far, she has enough power outlets to plug them all in, but she'll have to shut one off when she needs to use her laptop or something... and of course a multiplug with one button to shut all lights off in one go when she isn't home would be very nice... But no, she won't ask Nile for that, she'll just have to get one for herself if she can scratch together enough money. It's not like it could be that expensive, right?

Next comes the poster of Saigon skyline- Quỳnh wishes she had a frame for it, but the poster alone but will have to do for now. It's pretty, at least, the city lights at night now surrounded by the twinkling fairy lights.

Putting her books on the middle boards of the shelves, she then pushes the rest of her boxes into a neat row next to the bed to deal with later on. On the desk, she puts a picture of her family and her little wooden mannequin. While she is arranging its limbs so it looks like it is dancing, someone knocks against the frame of the open door, and Quỳnh quickly turns around.

"Oh, I didn't hear you come," she says, flustered, as she sees Andy standing in the door.

Andy doesn't answer, instead looking around the room. "Wow, you could be an interior designer!"

Quỳnh has no idea why, but the compliment makes her feel hot all over.

Why _does_ she react to Andy this way? She never reacts to anyone like that, and it's not as if she is _into_ her, right?

_...right?_

"Uh, thanks?" she stammers when she realizes that she has been silent for too long.

Andy just smiles, not unkindly so. "Nicky says food's ready," she says, moving to turn around but catching the doorframe at the last second and saying over her shoulder:

"We're all happy you're here."

Quỳnh has to take a moment to get her breathing back under control, but then she manages to unplug the lights and make her way into the kitchen.

Nicky and Andy are already seated, and Joe hands out plates of Nicky's cooking. Quỳnh smells her plate, unsure what exactly she is being handed, but it definitely smells nice...

"Just a stew," Nicky tells her, sounding a little anxious, "Bit of my own creation, you don't have to eat it if you don't-"

"Shut up, Nicky, your food is great." Andy says, and starts shoveling bites into her mouth as if to prove her point.

Quỳnh chuckles, sits down and tries the food. "It's good!" she says, then smiles at Nicky, hoping to reassure him. "Really, it is."

While they are eating, the front door opens and shuts again, and Nile hurries into the kitchen, face flushed as she warms up from the cold. 

"Oh, we're eating together, is that Nicky's cooking I smell? Sorry, I got distracted by plans for ComicCon earlier, and then I had to stay in the library until now to finish my essay... Oh, Quỳnh! Right, you're here today, sorry I'm a bit out of it! So nice to see you!" she chatters excitedly, throwing her raincoat over a chair and gratefully taking a plate of hot stew from Joe. 

"Wow, thanks!"

"Uh, hi," Quỳnh murmurs, not sure she needs to greet her new roommate, but feeling awkward not saying anything at all.

"Quỳnh's got some fairy lights up in her room," Andy chimes in, "I was wondering if she could have your multi-plug, if you still don't need it?"

"Oh, Sure!" Nile says immediately. 

"Oh- thanks, but I can get my own-"

"Don't worry about it! I really only need it for the sound system for parties, and it's not like we're going to have one any time soon..."

"Oh right _that's_ when we last used it, not the fridge," Andy exclaims.

Nicky groans. "Oh don't remind me about that! I hated having to make food in the dark, thank god it's fixed now..."

The others laugh. Quỳnh smiles, too. It feels nice to sit together with them, familiar even though she is new.

She is going to like it here, she is sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There can never be too many comments!!!


	4. Celeste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2021-02-13  
> no this won't be ot3 with Celeste, tho Quỳnh does have a bit of a girlcrush on her too xD

Back at university the next day, Quỳnh is sitting in a chair in the foyer two hours before her first lecture even starts. She has her laptop on her knees, the PowerPoint slides of her economics course open on the screen, and is trying her hardest to understand what her Professor is explaining about yet another theory she will probably never need after getting her degree...

"Hi there, Quỳnh!" Celeste's voice is pulling her out of her thoughts, and Quỳnh lets go of her bottom lip which she now notices that she had been worrying between her teeth.

It's nice to be addressed by name, Celeste is one of the few who do that. She is wearing a worm on a string as an earring today, but together with the rest of her blain black outfit, she somehow manages to look sophisticated despite it.

"Hi, Celeste," Quỳnh smiles and half-closes her laptop, happy about the excuse to procrastinate a little.

Celeste leans against the chair next to her. "We missed you at the bar yesterday, but Moira says you weren't at uni all day?" 

"Yeah, I moved and then I was tired. Sorry, I forgot to answer in the group chat..." It's not entirely a lie, it really hasn't occurred to Quỳnh to answer, even though she did see the conversations in the different chats. She just hadn't thought that anyone would notice her absence- that anyone would _miss_ her. She barely knows most of the people in those groups, only in most of them because they share classes or because Celeste invited her... Quỳnh does know a Moira, although she isn't quite sure what exactly the other girl studies, she thinks she might share a lecture and a seminar with her.

"No matter! Oh, what lectures are you going through? Exams soon?" Celeste asks her with a kind smile, her nose piercing sparkling in the blue screen light as she moves down to look at the PowerPoint, giving her an almost ethereal appearance.

Has Celeste always been this pretty?

At least, no matter how pretty Celeste is, Quỳnh never feels as awkward around her as she does around Andy. 

But Celeste _is_ pretty, and now that she's really thinking about it, so are a lot of other girls.

Oh god.

She _likes_ likes girls.

Which means that maybe... she has a crush on Andy.

She _can't_ have a crush on Andy, because she is her flatmate, and she is a girl, and _Quỳnh has a boyfriend_.

But tons of people have crushes on other people while they're in a relationship, they just don't act on it, right? 

She just hopes it won't make living in the flat awkward. While she already loves- and no, alright, that feels weird to say or even think now that she might have a crush on one of them, so- while she already _likes_ her flatmates very much, she does sometimes feel ilke they have all their inside jokes and she's standing at the outside looking in, not really a part of their little family. Of course, it's still loads better than what she had before, but- still.

And now, with Andy...

"Are you alright?" Celeste interrupts her frantic train of thoughts, and Quỳnh remembers that she had asked her something before it all...

"I- yes. Sure. Uh- just- Economics slides. I missed yesterday's lecture."

"Ouch, I tried that for a semester, not my thing!" Celeste laughs.

"It's part of the multimedia study course. Sadly." Quỳnh sighs and opens her laptop again when Celeste moves back up, expecting her to be on her way to wherever she had been going to now. Instead, Celeste taps herself to the forehead with another open laugh.

"Right! That's what you're doing, sorry I forgot! Always pegged you as more of an artsy type, or jewellery maybe..."

Quỳnh just nods. It's not like Celeste is wrong about that, but she doesn't feel like going over her life choices again right now. One life-changing revelation is enough to deal with right now, she can't contemplate her major again right now, too.

"Well, about Econ, I think Moira might be able to help you there? You wouldn't think it, but she's actually quite good at it."

"I- yeah, maybe. Well, I'm halfway through them already now..." To be honest, Quỳnh would just feel weird texting the other girl to ask for help when they have never written in a private chat before, only in the groups.

"Well, think about it," Celeste smiles at her as if she knows exactly what is going through Quỳnh's head. "And come to the bar next time, yes?"

After an exhausting day at Uni and feeling half ready to quit it all, Quỳnh gets a text from Nathan.

_'Coming over at 5, get ready to introduce me to your roomies, yeah? x'_

Right, because he hasn't even met her flatmates yet. She had almost forgotten about that, about him. What kind of girlfriend does that?

 _The kind who who doesn't even want to be his girlfriend anymore_ , a voice whispers in her head. But that's not true, is it? She enjoys being with him, for the most part, and she doesn't want to break anyone's heart, and doesn't want to disappoint the people who think that they are so great together... alright, these sound like silly reasons, but no, she does like him! 

When Nathan does arrive, no-one is in the kitchen, so Quỳnh just takes him straight to room. She is a little glad that she doesn't have to introduce her flatmates to him yet, and then she feels bad for the thought. He hasn't done anything to embarrass her, has he? Well, Andy had been mad when he hadn't shown up when she was moving in, so that might be a bit awkward, but she's sure that it will be fine.

After snogging on her bed for a while, they decide to study together.

Quỳnh is glad- she had been getting increasingly distracted by the thought of how Andy's lips might feel on hers instead... And then she had tried to consider Celeste's lips, or any other girl's, because focusing on her maybe-crush like that is a bad idea, right? Except now she's afraid that she is going to crush on Celeste, too, and that wouldn't make her situation any better.

Maybe she would get over it if she just tried it once, and didn't have to wonder anymore, it would be fine? If she snogged a girl at a party where Nathan could see, it wouldn't even be cheating. Not that she wants to play with some poor girl's feelings, but there are others who would probably be into it for the same reasons as herself...

Except she already knows that the true reason for her distraction isn't that she needs to snog a random girl, but Andy in particular, and if she kissed _her,_ it would only get worse.

Studying together with Nathan feels good, familiar. They do it a lot, Nathan says the only time he actually gets some work done is when Quỳnh is there to remind him to keep studying, and for her, it _is_ nice to work in company, so they are both getting something out of it.

Once Nathan finishes reading a part of his textbook, he says that he needs a place for his laptop.

"You can have the desk, you know that I'm mostly working in the kitchen or on my bed anyway." And it's true, she's already sitting against the headboard with her laptop on her knees... Except she isn't really working right now, looking over the exercise instructions for the third time and barely understanding a word she's reading as she tries to imagine what Andy's room might look like, whether they are sharing a wall...

"Great, I'll just clear out your clutter then."

"Mhmm..." she barely heard what he said, too lost in her thoughts- but then Nathan unceremoniously dumps her decorations onto an empty shelf, and Quỳnh winces when he moves her little wooden mannequin, she had wanted to continue to draw that pose for an idea of a dress she had- but it's not like she got around to it anyway, and after all, she did agree that he could have the desk... She shouldn't be mad at him for this, right?

A while later, Joe knocks on her doorframe. "Hey Quỳnh, are you making your own dinner, or do you want to join me and- oh, hi! Didn't realize you had a visitor." 

"I'm her boyfriend." Nathan says, standing and giving Joe a threatening look. "So you better cut it out, alright?"

"Hey, he doesn't-" Quỳnh quickly gets up from the bed and stands in-between the two guys. "Joe, we'd love to join you for dinner, then we can introduce everyone. I would have just made pasta otherwise, anyway."

"Well, don't get your hopes up for the food," Joe says, turning around in the doorway, Quỳnh and, still a little miffed, Nathan, following him. "Just my stew this time, not Nicky's fancy cooking, but I did make enough for everyone-"

"Another bird and two guys, right?" The 'don't try anything with my girl' still swings heavily in Nathan's tone.

"Uh, no worries about us guys," Joe turns aroud and gives Quỳnh a look. She blushes at Nathan's blatant sexism.

"Why no worries?" Nathan asks, indignantly. "You're together all day, who knows what-"

They've reached the kitchen, and Joe laughs and presses a kiss to Nicky's cheek, who's on the phone with someone, speaking in rapid Italian and just giving him a tight smile.

"Oh. Ooh. Alright." Nathan grimaces. "Well then, just don't try anything on me and we're good! Hell, 't least I won't have to worry 'bout you stealing my girl, right?" He laughs, pats him on the back and sits down for dinner. Joe looks somewhere between confused and amused, Nicky looks mortified.

The atmosphere is awkward for a while as they are sitting at table together, although Nathan doesn't seem to notice it, shovelling stew into his mouth with vigor.

Quỳnh wishes Andy or Nile were there, Nile seems to always know how to disperse a situation, and Andy- well, Andy is Andy.

"So, how did you two meet?" Nicky finally asks as he serves himself again.

Quỳnh has to smile as she thinks back to it. It had been at a summer wedding, she had worked as an intern with the wedding design company, and they had all been invited to the reception by the bride and groom. Nathan had been a guest on the bride's side, and one of the few people to actually talk to the staff instead of ignoring them... at the end of the evening, she had given him her number in the sincere hope that he would call, and a few days later, he had.

Before Quỳnh can say any of this, though, Nathan laughs. "Oh, man, it was at some party my mom dragged me to, just old folks and no action- but the catering girls, they were some lookers! Of course Quỳnh here was the hottest, so we fit right together." he laughs again, and Quỳnh only stares.

So he really just thought that she was attractive, nothing else? He doesn't even remember that she was working for the event planners, not the catering firm? This doesn't sound like the meet-cute she had remembered anymore. 

It seems like they are drifting further and further apart. Why is she even dating him? 

Except- maybe she's only thinking that now because she has a crush. She doesn't want to be that kind of person, who leaves someone at a flight of fancy. No, she needs to think. But at the same time, she doesn't want to think about it ever, at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise there will be more happiness in the next chapter!  
> Though this is really turning more and more into a slow-burn xDxD


	5. Avoidance and Origami

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020-02-24

Later that night, Quỳnh is sitting on her bed, laptop on her knees, idly browsing through the internet, looking at little patterns and designs to save for later...

The front door opens, and Quỳnh hears someone throw their boots into the corner. Closing her laptop a little, Quỳnh waits for whoever it is to pass her half-open door. In her old flat, in the end, she had always left it closed and locked, so being able to leave it open is something she happily indulges in now, even if it does give her less privacy.

"Still awake?" Andy sticks her head inside. "Didn't think you'd be a workaholic."

"Awake, yes, but I'm not working anymore," Quỳnh replies, pushing her laptop shut. "Were you with the horses all day?"

"Wish I was, but I think I spent more time in my boss' office arguing with his idiot underlings," Andy grumbles, then forcefully shuts her mouth and squeezes her eyes shut for a moment before opening them again. "Ugh, I don't even want to talk about it. But today was stressful, I didn't even have dinner yet."

"Joe made a stew, I think there's still some leftover in the fridge," Quỳnh tells her, and, when Andy, doesn't look all too happy at that prospect, "Or there are candy bars in my desk drawer if you just want a little snack?"

Andy's eyes practically light up at the mention of the sweet, and Quỳnh has to supress a grin. She had noticed that Andy seems to have a bit of a sweet tooth and is happy that she guessed it right.

"Just come in and take whichever you like, they're in the left drawer," she tells her, and Andy pulls the door closed behind her before making her way over to her desk. Being alone with the other woman in a closed room makes Quỳnh feel warm in ways she doesn’t want to acknowledge.

"Where did all your little trinkets go?" Andy asks as she pulls open the drawer of the empty desk. "Wasn't there a puppet thing and some designs up last time?"

"You remembered that?" Quỳnh asks, surprised, and tries not to blush. She shouldn't interpret things into Andy's words that aren't really there.

"Sure, the puppet thing looked like a prima ballerina! It's for drawing anatomy, though, right?" Andy asks, still with her back to her, rifling through the candy bars before selecting a Mars.

"Yes, getting poses and proportions right... Nathan moved it, he doesn't like these things much and-"

"He what?!" Andy whirls around and stares at her in shock.

Quỳnh blinks. What's so bad about that?

"Uhm, he needed a place for his laptop, and I did tell him he could have the desk?"

Andy still does not look amused, and Quỳnh doesn't know what else to say to defend her boyfriend. All her usual excuses for him feel somewhat hollow now.

"Well, thanks for the candy," Andy says a little awkwardly now, like she's afraid that she has overstepped somehow, and Quỳnh wants to tell her that it's find, except- Andy did get mad at her boyfriend again. Shouldn't she be mad at her now, or something? 

"You're welcome," she just says with a smile, and Andy nods before she leaves the room.

Quỳnh can't help feeling like she wrecked an opportunity for something precious between them.

The rest of the week passes in a blur, Quỳnh hurrying from one class to the next, finishing two group projects for seminars, and three shifts behind the counter at Boots, she barely manages to see Nathan or her flatmates.

She's not sure whether she is avoiding Nathan or just genuinely doesn’t have the time. She could probably make time, but she never even tries.

In the flat, she still feels like an outsider at times, when she comes home and sees a few of the others laughing in the kitchen together, but that's silly, right? She has only lived there for a few days after all, and it has been busy.

Oh Wednesday, a seminar ends over an hour early, and thrown from her routine of constant stress, Quỳnh is at a loss of what to do as she makes her way home. Of course, she should probably just call Nathan and see whether he also has time, but – she kind of wants to spend some time for herself, maybe start a new DIY project...

Thinking about the designs, dresses and artworks she has started and never finished in the past, nothing quite feels right, and she doesn't have time for any of her bigger ideas right now, not when she would just spend the evening planning and then not having the time to go through with any of it.

When she passes the kitchen on her way to her room, Quỳnh sees Nile sitting at the table with a book open in front of her and another one at the side, and she is bent over brightly coloured paper.

"What are you doing there, if I may ask?" Quỳnh asks curiously, stepping closer.

"Oh, just trying some origami. I don't think it's quite my thing," Nile laughs, and Quỳnh smiles. 

"Well, you never know until you try it, right?" She has noticed that Nile seems to try a different hobby every day before sticking to her knitting again.

"Exactly," Nile laughs. "Joe was saying the same thing wanting to get me to draw yesterday, and Nico is trying to get me into baking, but I've actually tried those before and didn't like them... Andy is just morbidly fascinated by it all, I think the only hobbies she would suggest are languages and horses, and she knows that none of that is my thing..."

Smiling at the thought, Quỳnh pages through the second origami book: "Can I try one of these?"

"Sure! I don't have much paper left, and I was actually about to leave, but feel free to borrow the books! Just bring them back to the library before the fourteenth or I'll have to pay fees!"

Absently, already looking through the books, Quỳnh answers "I'd pay them for you if I'm the one bringing it back late..."

She barely notices when Nile leaves, lost in thought. As a kid, she had often stayed with an aunt of hers who had liked to do origami, saying it made her connected to home- even though Quỳnh's mother said that it's a Chinese-Japanese art, not Vietnamese at all, and she shouldn't listen to her sister too much. Quỳnh had never cared.

She had liked that aunt- aunt Bian had always told her to stand up for herself, take no man's shit and be herself unconditionally. Not quite what her own mother tends to tell her.

And apart from the nostalgia factor, origami is also the perfect idea for a DIY project to do right now... fun, not too much effort and something she doesn’t need a long timeframe for.

Quỳnh doesn't have the coloured paper Nile has, but her old lecture slide printouts one of the design professors had insisted on work just fine for her to try out some shapes.

First, she folds two different ships, a frog, and a little bird, which she then repeats in a piece of pink paper she finds in one of her old design zines and places on the arm of her mannequin on the shelf.

Then, after a moment of hesitation, she puts both back on her desk. Andy is right- it’s her space, and she should decorate it however way she pleases. Nathan will understand that when she tells him- right?

After that, she moves on to a page further back in the book, to a star that's actually kind of three-dimensional.   
Quỳnh works on this one for a while, has to start over twice until she gets it right, but she loves the end result. Maybe she will buy some coloured paper for herself... Origami really is a good thing to do when she has just a little bit of free time, and she will be able to put the end results in jars for the rest of her so far undecorated shelves, maybe together with some fairy lights...

Smiling at the mental pictures, she clears her desk from the scrapped papers and goes to bed.

The next two days, Quỳnh doesn't have a lot of time for paper folding, as she is hurrying from one part of the campus to the next, only meeting Nathan for a dinner in the city once and choosing to go home alone instead of going back to his place.

She doesn't see Andy all week, and only meets the others sporadically when she passes through the kitchen, throws a quick dinner into the microwave or gets offered Nicky’s leftover pasta.

It’s not like she’s avoiding Andy, right? She barely saw the others too, they’re really just all busy.

On Friday afternoon, for once everyone is sitting in the kitchen together, talking amongst each other with Quỳnh in the corner spot next to Andy, smiling about the jokes Joe makes and how Andy throws a chocolate wrapper at him. 

She already can’t believe anymore that she had felt wary of the situation at first when she had come home from Uni to find Andy, Nile and Nicky already there, afraid it would be awkward with Andy, or that she was just intruding in their friend group in general…

It has been nothing but nice, and when Joe came home with enough pastries for everyone, Quỳnh had lost her last reservations.

Now, everyone is just relaxing together, Andy has moved to lie on the couch, reading, Nile is knitting and talking about a movie she watched at the cinema, Joe and Nicky cuddling together on two chairs they pushed together, as Andy said there being two of them should not guarantee them constant couch privileges, pulling Quỳnh into the corner next to her instead to occupy the couch.

Which brings her to the current situation, smiling into her cup of hot cocoa as Andy throws wrappers at the boys for distracting her from her reading.

Andy is lying down on the couch with her legs over the armrest and her head next to Quỳnh... But it feels comfortable, no longer awkward. Maybe, she is finally over her crush. Right?

"Want to come to the bar tonight, everyone?" Nile asks when Nicky gets up to puts away the pastry plates.

Andy warily looks up from her Russian novel. "...which bar and why?"

"Our corner bar, and with the drama club! Desiree is behind the bar tonight, so no-one can stop us from...”

“From being weird?” Andy groans.

Quỳnh raises a questioning eyebrow, and Andy gives her a wry smile that makes her heart beat faster. Damnit. She’s definitely not over her crush yet at all.

"They like to practice their drama club stuff in public, and usually end up doing something that's both Shakespeare and Star-Trek. You _don't_ want to see that."

Nile huffs and wants to argue, but Andy keeps talking before she can open her mouth. "Last time I went, they made me stab someone with a fake knife, and then everyone was sad for half an hour because that character died."

"The episode had just aired, we were in _mourning!_ " Nile throws up her hands, but she is grinning, too.

“Are you guys coming?” she then turns to Joe and Nicky. “You had fun last time, right?” her look is daring them to disagree.

Joe laughs. “Sure, why not. We haven’t gone out in a while now, have we, habibi?”

Nicky smiles and kisses him, and Nile, content to have recruited enough people into going out, is skipping down the hall in search of a new outfit.

Quỳnh giggles and looks back to Andy. "She’s taking that really seriously, huh?"

Andy laughs. "You have no idea!"

Quỳnh smiles back. "So, are you still going?" she hopes that she is not too obvious in wanting to know whether Andy will be there before she decides herself.

Nodding, Andy closes her book and pushes it into the gap between couch and wall for safekeeping. "Sure, I do love to watch those weirdos. Just wish they wouldn’t keep trying to recruit me!”

Andy has raised her voice for the last part, and Nile calls back “I heard that!”

“You were supposed to!”

Quỳnh beams. It does sound like a fun night out, and she can’t say that she has ever seen theatre nerds in a bar before- at least not in action. No, her decision to go is definitely not just based on Andy going.

Also, really, this is the perfect excuse to go out for once. And the bar is close to her campus, so maybe…

Quickly checking her Uni group chats, Quỳnh confirms that it looks like a few people of her economics course are going to be there too, and she writes that she might join them as she is going with her flatmates. 

Two birds with one stone: socialising with her flatmates and actually going to meet people from Uni somewhere other than the lecture halls! Celeste would be proud of her, Quỳnh thinks- then immediately feels bad for thinking of it that way. It's not like meeting friends is a chore! It's just that she doesn't have many close ones, and meeting everyone she is more or less friends with is easier when done in bulk.

And, she thinks looking down at where Andy is still sprawled on the couch next to her, her being there is definitely a bonus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really love Origami myself, though I'm no good at remembering any of the designs by heart :D
> 
> Next chapter will be some bar/club chaos! Wanted to upload it in one chapter, but I wouldn't have managed the entire thing and still wanted to upload something tonight, so... :)
> 
> If you're still here, it would be much appreciated if you could leave a comment to let me know! <3


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